Is Palm back?

The geek in me is happy.

The godfather of the handheld computer, Palm, which has been teetering on the precipice of irrelevance, may have come back from the brink.

Palm, today at the Consumer Electronics Show, has announced the release of the Prē phone.

And despite all the Consumer Electronic Show hype, the Prē may be the phone/device that Palm should have released several years ago. It's the iPhone without the cabalistic, closed-shop, hero-worshiping, DRM-penalizing, forced pseudo-hipness.


It runs off a web-based OS (meaning, for one thing, developer-friendly) and a touch-screen with pinch-touch motions. It has a mute volume button(!). And a single tactile front-face button. And a slide-out keyboard. And it can run several applications simultaneously.

Prē uses EVDO for data transfer, which means that even though Sprint gets first crack at it, even my "We never (ha-ha) stop working for you" Verizon may have a version later in 2009 or early 2010. (Of course, they'll probably muck it up with restrictions and alterations.. but that's how they never stop working for me, I guess).

My history: Palm 100 ---> Palm 105 ---> Tungsten T3 (loved that slide out) ---> T/X ---> Samsung SCH i760 (ugh... but couldn't go for the Treo).

Thank you ... crossing my fingers ... Palm!

• Rob Pegorarao from the Washington Post reviewed it favorably.
• More specs at PalmInfoCenter.com.